- December 21, 2024 5:08 am
- California
Jeyhun Najafov
CEO & President
Today oil and gas producers face severe regulatory and public relations obstacles due to the concern with greenhouse gases and resource depletion. Calgary-based start-up, Advanced Upstream (“AU”), has been disrupting the oil and gas industry with simple and reliable innovative technologies. AU’s products help the oil and gas producers to enhance energy production while reducing the corresponding environmental impact. By decreasing personnel and time on site, and lowering overall HSE risks across the board, the clients can see a notable improvement in their ESG rating, contributing to their bottom line.
Advanced Upstream’s mission is to set the “Gold Standard” in completions technology and be committed to continual improvement through its Quality Management System. The company’s Limitless® Frac system is a sleeve and dart system that allows single plane fracturing of a targeted zone. For the first time, operators can produce fracks within a single plane to maximize the efficiency of the fracture. The “limitless” nature of the system allows for the creation of fracks vastly further from the vertical well than what is possible today due to the limits imposed by coil tubing and wirelines. As the darts only require water pressure for propulsion and are designed to interact with targeted sleeves, the amount of time, water, and energy needed to produce the fracks is significantly lower than what exists with the plug and perf system.
Furthermore, the Limitless® Sleeves contain preexisting steel nozzles whose orifices are designed to divert the fracturing fluid into the optimal rockface orientation within a single plane. This allows for a control unimaginable to plug and perf and eliminates the need for explosives. It also eliminates the need to pull out the coiled tubing to reinsert a new plug and perf to work on the next zone. “The result is lower complexities, risks, and costs across the board,” says Jeyhun Najafov, CEO & President at Advanced Upstream.
Leading with Innovation
Hailing from Azerbaijan, Jeyhun has worked on oil and gas projects in Africa, Europe, and North America. While studying for his Ph.D. at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy in Baku (now called Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University), he was recruited by Schlumberger to work as a field engineer for a project in Nigeria. Three years later, he was promoted to Field Service Manager of the company’s Coiled Tubing Operations in Nefteyugansk, Russia. He ascended the corporate ladder during the next decade until he became Schlumberger’s Account Manager for Coiled Tubing Services in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He then moved to become Baker Hughes’s Director of Coiled Tubing Research & Engineering for over four years until starting Advanced Upstream in July 2018. Jeyhun’s rapid rise is due to his vision, drive, risk-taking, and continuous improvement mindset. He always strives to find ways to improve performance and outcomes.
“Our value proposition is both quantitative and qualitative. Our customers enjoy lower costs, shorter completions, and fewer personnel while also receiving better ESG ratings, lower risks, effective customization, and a superior customer image,” elucidates Jeyhun. “Our key resources are our personnel – we secured the best talents in the industry while the recession and pandemic caused mass layoffs.” The company’s additional essential resources are intellectual patents and in-house manufacturing for our products. Their key activities are production, problem-solving, and customized design to respond rapidly to client needs. Advanced Upstream’s cost structure is value-driven – they believe a value-creation business model gives the clients the best return on their investment.
Limitless® Frac System
Advanced Upstream’s Limitless® Frac System is the most advanced technology in the industry today, and it is specifically designed to leverage the latest advances in horizontal directional drilling. When multiple pitches and yaws become possible, only their system can result in a truly “limitless” well design that maximizes the fracturing footprint for a single wellhead.
“Our Limitless® Frac System gives our customers the best possible ESG score since it drastically reduces the environmental impact of fracturing,” explains Jeyhun. “For instance, the well pad size is much smaller, far less water is needed to commission the well; no explosives are needed to create the fractures; faster commissioning times occur since there is no need to use coiled tubing or wirelines; and a smaller labor force can be used.”
As of today, Advanced Upstream has successfully completed around 40 jobs for major Canadian Operators and has installed more than 2000 sleeves. One example of a successful project using the Limitless® Cluster and Landing Sleeve system occurred in the Canadian Montney formation. Contactless Sleeve Recognition technology enabled the opening of 74 sleeves in 20 stages, leaving behind a 95% drift. A single dart allowed the opening of four entry points per stage (three clusters, one landing sleeve). Acoustic monitoring was used to verify the opening of all sleeves.
The Canadian Operator was able to achieve the following:
Thanks to Limitless®, Operators do not have to make sacrifices between appropriate spending and unrestricted well completion quality.
Towards the Future
Due to the significant cost savings and ESG advantages AU provides, they anticipate exponential growth over the next five years. “We will expand our footprint to multiple US sites, especially in Texas (Barnett, Eagle Ford, and Haynesville-Bossier formations), North Dakota (Bakken and Three Forks), and Colorado (Niobrara and Piceance). We also expect to establish a presence in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico,” says Jeyhun. “We are a young company, just four years old. But despite our youth, we are already ISO 9001-2015 Certified and have mature governing documentation and processes that fully meet the expectations of long-established major oil and gas providers.” Advanced Upstream is the best choice for operators that use hydraulic fracturing to maximize their ESG rating, as only Limitless® Frac System can leverage the latest advances in horizontal directional drilling. Advanced Upstream allows horizontal wells in any configuration and length that maximizes efficiencies for a single wellhead.
See our website to learn more: www.advancedupstream.com
" Advanced Upstream’s cost structure is value-driven – they believe a value-creation business model gives the clients the best return on their investment. "
